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The AI Shift
From Tasks
to Outcomes
to Roles
How AI is reshaping the way organizations work
A date almost nobody knows
November 30
2022
That Day
ChatGPT went
public
🤖
For the first time, ordinary people could sit down at a computer
and have a conversation with an incredibly capable AI.
What we did with it
We made our
emails sound better
"Make this more professional"
"Make this less aggressive"
"Make this sound like I didn't write it 5 minutes before the meeting"
Useful? Absolutely.
Transformative? Not really.
That's not the AI revolution.
That's the beginning.
Part I
Most companies are thinking
about AI wrong
The Gap
Everyone believes.
Few have planned.
✓ Believe AI matters
Most hands stay up
✗ Have a plan
Most hands come down
They understand something enormous is happening.
They just haven't figured out what to do about it.
Level 1 — Where most people are
Tasks
✉️
Write an email
📄
Summarize a doc
📊
Analyze a spreadsheet
🔍
Research a company
We hired the most powerful technology ever created
as the world's smartest intern.
Stop thinking
only about tasks.
Start thinking about outcomes.
Part II
Tasks → Outcomes
The Difference
Example One
TASK
"Write me an article about warehouse automation."
OUTCOME
"Become one of the most visible authorities online for warehouse automation."
Now AI has a goal — not just an assignment.
The Difference
Example Two
TASK
"Find me a list of prospects."
OUTCOME
"Every week: 20 ideal customers identified, researched, prioritized — and the best way to reach each one."
Completely different.
Part III
Outcomes → Roles
The Mental Shift
A tool or an employee?
AI
🔧 Tool
You use it for tasks
AI AGENT
👤 Employee
It works toward a goal
If you hired someone tomorrow
What would you give them?
📋
Job Description
🔐
System Access
📐
Processes & Rules
🎯
KPIs
👤
A Manager
📚
Training
That's how we should think about agents.
Don't give AI
a prompt.
Give it a job description.
The most important question
How do I know
if you're doing a good job?
What's your KPI?
Hypothetical Candidate
Would you hire
this person?
✔ Available 24 hours a day
✔ Reads enormous amounts of information instantly
✔ Researches, writes, analyzes, processes documents
✔ Works across software systems
✔ Follows documented procedures
✔ Marginal cost is extraordinarily low
Unfortunately, they're not a person.
Part IV
Every job is a workflow
Example: Purchase Order
It's just a workflow
1
Receive email
→
2
Open document
→
3
Identify customer
→
4
Read items
5
Enter in system
→
6
Check inventory
→
7
Verify pricing
→
8
Confirm & update
If you can clearly describe a workflow,
you can teach an AI agent to execute it.
Not every workflow. Not today. But the percentage is growing fast.
"What AI software
should we buy?"
That's the wrong question.
"What actually happens inside our company every day?"
Every company has one
The Susan Problem
👩‍💼
Been there 17 years
Knows everything
Nobody knows what she does
But if she's out... screwed
You think you have an SOP.
You don't. The SOP is Susan.
AI creates another reason to finally extract that knowledge.
Action Item #1 — Monday Morning
Before your next hire,
map the workflow
When someone says "We need another person," ask:
"What workflow do we need more capacity for?"
Part V
The economics of work
are changing
A personal story
32 → 16 → 4 → 0
32
Full-time VAs
16
After first wave
4
Getting leaner
0
Today
Same output. Zero full-time VA workforce.
For hundreds of years
The old equation
More work
↓
More people
↓
More cost
The new option
The new equation
More work
↓
More AI / technology capacity
↓
Then decide if more people are necessary
6 people might now support a company 3x the size.
The winning model
Human judgment
+ machine execution
HUMANS
✔ Relationships
✔ Leadership
✔ Empathy
✔ Judgment
✔ Accountability
✔ Nuance
MACHINES
✔ Research
✔ Repetition
✔ Processing data
✔ Documentation
✔ Following processes
✔ Working at 2 AM
Automate the work humans shouldn't have needed
to spend their lives doing in the first place.
How fast expectations flip
"REPRESENTATIVE!"
📞
We've spent 20 years trying to get past the machine
and reach a human being.
We're about to flip.
"Wait... are you AI or human?"
"I'm an AI."
"Oh thank God.
Somebody who can actually help me."
Part VI — We've seen this before
January 9,
2007
📱
Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone.
Nobody knew it would replace your GPS, camera, boarding pass, flashlight, newspaper, credit card, television, taxi dispatcher, and parts of your bank.
We're looking at the first iPhone...
...and arguing about how good the camera is.
We're still early.
Part VII — If you photograph one slide
The AI Workforce Evolution
Level 1
Ask AI
Help me do something
Level 2
Assign AI
Complete this workflow
Level 3
Manage AI
Own this outcome
Level 4
Employ AI
Role, tools, workflows, guardrails, KPIs
Most organizations are between Level 1 and Level 2.
Part VIII — The Exercise
Pull up a job posting
Marketing Coordinator — $65,000
AI CAN DO
✔ Research competitors
✔ Create content
✔ Update CRM records
✔ Send email campaigns
HUMAN REVIEWS
⚠ Analyze performance
⚠ Strategy decisions
⚠ Coordinate webinars
⚠ Manage social media
"Can AI replace
a marketing coordinator?"
That's the wrong question.
"If I were designing this job today,
knowing what AI can do,
would I design it the same way?"
Part IX
Your next employee
may be an agent
This isn't 5 or 10 years away.
We're building these systems today.
Part X — Warning
Don't automate
chaos
AI doesn't fix a bad process.
It just lets you execute a bad process faster.
Start with the outcome. Then design the workflow. Then decide what's human, software, and AI.
Three things — not 27 tools, not 50 prompts
Monday Morning
1.  Pick one role with repetitive knowledge work
2.  Map the workflow — step by step
3.  Ask: "How would we design this role today?"
If we built this role today,
with AI available from the beginning,
how would we design it?
Don't sprinkle ChatGPT on a 15-year-old workflow. Redesign it.
5 years from now
The question won't be
"Are you using AI?"
That'll sound like asking "Do you use the internet?"
What percentage of work is done by people?
What percentage by machines?
And have you designed that combination intentionally?
The companies that figure it out first
They won't just save money
⚡
Move faster
🤝
Serve customers better
🚀
Give employees leverage
🏗️
Build impossible orgs
From tasks...
to outcomes...
to roles.
Don't wait until it becomes normal.
Start redesigning one workflow now.
Thank You
Questions?
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